With British Petroleum’s Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward scheduled to appear Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigation, there will likely be a great deal of focus on the company’s negligence that led to the Deepwater Horizon explosion; and how it plans to contain the oil spill by the end of the month.
So as BP becomes even more scrutinized with oil continuing to gush into the Gulf of Mexico at alarming rates, here is a look back at some highs and lows of the British-based global energy company over the last 100 years or so.
• 1901: On May 28th, The grand vizier of Persia (now Iran) grants William Knox D’Arcy the privilege to develop, trade, and sell natural gas, petroleum, asphalt and ozokerite for 60 years throughout Persia, except for five northern provinces.
• 1908: In May, oil was discovered in the southwest of Persia at Masjid-i- Sulaiman, the first oil discovery in the Middle East.
• 1909: D’Arcy and Burma Oil Company form the Anglo-Persian Oil Company Limited
• 1912: The first service station from BP heritage company Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco) opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• 1917: Anglo-Persian acquires British Petroleum Company.
• 1932: BP and Shell merged their U.K. market operations to form Shell-Mex. This relationship would last until 1976.
• 1934: Shell-Mex and BP acquire the Power Petroleum Company.
• 1935: The name of the Anglo-Persian company is changed to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Limited, the same year Persia became Iran.
• 1940’s: 44 Anglo-Iranian tankers were sunk during World War II, resulting in the loss of 657 lives.
• 1950: Anglo-Iranian market network in mainland Europe held 13 percent of the market of oil products, an increase from only eight percent in 1938.
• 1954: BP’s oil output increased from 740,000 barrels a day in 1954 to 1,500,000 in 1960 and 3,800,000 in 1970.
• 1952: Company engineers install a pipeline linking the Kirkuk field in Iraq to the Syrian port of Banias.
• 1954: The name of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company is changed to British Petroleum Company Limited.
• 1958: BP reaches agreement with Sinclair Oil Corporation to form two companies: 1.) selling BP’s Middle East crude in the U.S. through Sinclair’s downstream facilities; 2.) engaging in exploration primarily in Latin America.
• 1960’s: BP’s oil exploration in Libya begins to pay huge dividends.
• 1961: The 1960 motion picture Giuseppina, a film produced by BP wins an Academy Award in the category of short documentary.
• 1965: BP finds natural gas in the British waters of the North Sea.
• 1967: British Petroleum becomes the second largest chemicals company in the United Kingdom.
• 1967: Paula Harris, a Senior Mathematician in BP’s Computer Department, becomes the first female employee admitted to its Senior Luncheon Club.
• 1969: The first BP sign appears at a service station in Atlanta, Ga on April 29, 1969
• 1969: BP makes an oil find at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska on the North Slope; and begins partnering with Standard Oil Company of Ohio (SOHIO) in order to develop the property.
• 1970: Continental Europe accounted for nearly of half of BP’s refined oil sales, up from just a little more than a quarter of sales in 1954.
• 1970’s: BP lost most of its direct access to crude oil supplies produced in countries that belonged to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). BP’s oil assets were nationalized in Libya in 1971 and Nigeria in 1979.
• 1970’s: In an effort to diversify, BP developed an extensive coal business, principally in the United States, Australia, and South Africa.
• 1970’s: BP discovers the Forties field, the first major commercial oil discovery in British waters.
• 1977: BP and SOHIO complete the development of the Prudhoe Bay oil field with the construction of a 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
• 1987: BP acquires SOHIO; forms BP America. In October, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the British government sold its remaining shares in the company as part of a privatization program.
• 1990: BP undergoes a corporate restructuring, called ``Project 1990’’ in which nearly 90 percent of corporate center committees were abolished, while top-heavy structured departments were downsized to small flexible teams with more open lines of communication. Between 1990 and 1992, more than 19,000 positions or 16 percent of the total workforce were eliminated.
• 1992: On June 25, BP Chairman Robert Horton resigned after the company suffers its first quarterly losses, with sales falling from $66.4 billion in 1990 to $51.9 billion in 1992, while profits declined from $3.2 billion to an annual loss of $811 million.
• From 1993 to 1995, BP slices another 9,000 employees from the payroll, reducing its workforce to less than 54,000 by the end of 1996. Among a string of cost-cutting measures was the selling of 300 gas stations in California and Florida, 600 to 700 employee buyouts, and closer supervision of travel vouchers.
• 1996: BP merges its European refining and marketing operations with Mobil Corporation.
• 1997: BP announced it was building its first service stations in Japan, while acquiring a 10 percent equity stake in AO Sidanco, a major Russian oil and gas company.
• 1998: In a $50 billion deal, British Petroleum acquires Amoco Corporation, the fifth largest oil company in the United States and largest producer of natural gas in North America, forming BP Amoco PLC, which was now 60 percent owned by BP shareholders and headed by BP’s CEO Sir John Browne.
• 2000: BP drops ``Amoco’’ from its name and is now simply called, ``BP, p.l.c.’’ A new BP logo color scheme is introduced: a green and yellow sunburst
• 2000: BP Amoco acquires Atlantic Richfield Co and Burmah Castrol.
• 2000: BP Amoco PLC incorporated as BP p.l.c.
• 2000: BP makes $12 billion in pre-tax profits, a record for a British company.
• 2001: Madison Oil acquires BP’s ARCO Turkey Inc business for $3.4 billion
• 2003: BP sells a number of refineries, plants, and retail operations throughout the United States, Canada, Singapore, Central Europe and Germany.
• 2004: August, BP merged the automotive lubricant operations of Petrolub International Co Ltd and BP Japan, forming a new enterprise called BP Castrol KK, which held an estimated seven percent of the Japanese automotive lubricant market.
• 2005: An explosion at BP’s Texas refinery in the United States results in 15 deaths and 170 injuries. The company was forced to settle 1,350 lawsuits related to the refinery disaster. Hundreds of civil suits were still pending.
• 2005: BP sells its Innovene chemicals business to the Ineos Group (in the U.K.) for approximately $9 billion.
• 2006: BP deals with two oil spills in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, resulting from corroded pipelines and the spilling of 267,000 gallons of thick crude oil over two acres on the Tundra of Alaska’s North Slope.
• 2007: BP agrees to pay $373 million in restitution and fines to settle illegal propane trading allegations, including alleged environmental violations centering on the Alaskan pipeline leaks and Texas refinery explosion.
• 2007: BP’s annual profits fell 22 percent, reaching $17.3 billion.
• 2007: Tony Hayward succeeds John Browne after a storm of controversy surrounding Mr. Browne’s personal life.
• 2008: Falling profits, results in 5,000 job losses at BP, 60 percent of which were corporate positions.
• 2009: On April 14, BP celebrates its 100th anniversary.
• 2009: In early 2009, the State of Alaska, the U.S. Justice Department, and the U.S. Department of Transportation all filed civil lawsuits against BP’s exploration business relating to the oil spill in Prudhoe Bay.
• 2009: BP ends the year with 80,300 employees and $239 million in sales and operating revenues.
• 2010: April 20th, The Deepwater Horizon, a drilling rig working on a well for BP, situated 40 miles southeast off the Louisiana Coast in the Macondo Prospect oil field, exploded, resulting in 11 worker deaths, while 17 others were injured. The Deepwater Horizon sank two days later.
• 2010: June 15th, a government panel estimates that as much as 60,000 barrels a day could be gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, making it the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
• 2010: Bloomberg Business Week estimates BP faces more than 225 lawsuits in 11 states; and additionally reports the combined cleanup, restoration and litigation costs of the spill could exceed $37 billion, according to a June 2 report by Credit Suisse
- Bill Lucey
[email protected]
Source: International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 103; ``Portrait of Oil: An Illustrated History of BP’’ By Berry Ritchie; ``British Petroleum and Global Oil 1950-1975’’ By James Bamberg; BP Corporate Web site.
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